Pleasant Dreams, Page 2

Weeks later and things hadn’t gotten any better. The start of college came and went without me. Locked inside of my sister’s condo, I had begun to feel as if I had lost my mind. She never left my side now, that ghostly image of Jessica, and although it seemed like she wanted to tell me something, her voice remained silent.

  The only visitors I allowed were my parents and Dr. Benning. I spent a lot of time with them. I would have thought that Jessica would be happy that Spencer hadn’t bothered to come around again, but I knew that something was still bothering her. The flowers, cards, and balloons I had received from the hospital, laid untouched in the guest bedroom. I didn’t have the energy to throw them out and I didn’t have the desire to see who they had been from.

  Not that it mattered anymore. My self-proclaimed insanity had pretty much isolated me from any remaining friends I had left after Jess died. Too much psychosis in such a short amount of time had pretty much labeled me a stigma.

  It wasn’t bad though… not entirely. This new development had my parents acting more in love than I had ever seen them before. While Jessica’s murder had pushed them apart, my craziness had united them and brought them back together. Plus Dr. Benning was around a lot. There was something about him, something other than the fact he was a shrink that had a calming effect on me. I had begun to look forward to his visits more and more, even though they were more like the two of us hanging out than actual appointments. When he was around, it was the only reprieve I had from Jess anymore. It was almost like she was giving us privacy and I welcomed it.

  It was on one of these days that I now found myself. The wind outside was turning bitter with the sting of fall in the air. I decided to run. Despite everything, I still kept up on that, it was one of the few times I breathed in fresh air and I tried to go at least a few times each week. I wasn’t surprised to feel Jessica’s presence beside me as I made my way to the trail. Sometimes it felt as if she too needed these moments to clear her head. But I was surprised when she spoke, she had been silent for so long.

  “It’s happening again.”

  My feet skidded to a halt, unsure if I had really heard her or not. She just looked at me expectantly, urging me to understand something that was beyond my comprehension. “What did you say?” I asked her.

  She rolled her eyes. I would have laughed had I not been so freaked out. “It’s happening again.”

  Her voice was fuzzy, almost insubstantial and I frowned, my eyebrows snapping together. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s going to…”

  She started, but almost immediately her face twisted in horror and she made a sound like she was choking; like the words she wanted to say were stuck in her throat. I turned to look behind me, and my blood turned to ice. I couldn’t be positive, but I was almost certain that someone was following me. It was the way that this person ducked quickly off of the trail when I turned around and the flash of all black clothing, complete with a hooded jacket and glasses that made my heartbeat increase.

  I turned back to Jessica, ready to demand the answers I needed, but she was gone. Shivers ran up and down my spine. She had said “he”. Who was “he”? Spencer? Someone else? Had she really had a boyfriend that I didn’t know about?